CRITICA

I am in an imaginary relationship
With a place called El Salvador
I mourn, and I yearn
For a place in the past, or maybe for a place that never really existed
How do I return to a place that I have never been?

I intuit, or project onto, my Salvadoran patients

“Ah, El Salvador. There were some nice things about it, but I prefer it here”

Do you?
Do I?

I intuit, or project onto, my Salvadoran patients
I imagine some version of own childhood here, before

Open, fluid days, open sky in open nature
Swimming in ditches in the rain
Living with my parents, my sisters

“Ah, El Salvador. There were some nice things about it, but I prefer it here”

We explored all day outside
The dirt was so clean
Picking fruit on a whim from trees of all seasons
maracuyá, granadilla, guayaba

My one-year-old sister’s mangled, swollen foot
Terrified to leave the house
We ate only cow’s milk mixed with beans
The day they found him dead on the streets, I left

maracuyá, granadilla, guayaba

El Salvador, lo siento, lo siento

English is not the right language
For this poem

English is not the right language
Lo siento, perdóname